Chapter 15
A FRIGID SMILE on his lips, the king drags me toward the great hall’s doors. The crowd melts out of our raven-flanked path, calm again as though they weren’t churning themselves into a frenzy moments ago. This time I notice the pair of Twylth guards dropping in behind us.
Only when we reach an empty lounge and the door slams shut with the guards outside does the king stop and whip me around so quickly, my head snaps to one side. “What in all the seven hells were you doing?”
The ravens croak, just as indignant as him. The largest cocks its head, a beady eye on me.
Now the air around me has calmed, I can think clearly and look up at the king, all innocence. “What do you mean?”
“Your blood. It smells of life—of the surface. You thought that wouldn’t excite them?” He looms over me, nostrils flaring with each breath. “It’s… it’s intoxicating.”
Have the unseelie been here so long that even a hint of my world is so irresistible? Interesting. And something they have in common with that creature he showed me beyond the fortress walls.
“This whole evening you’ve disobeyed me. You’ve been rude. You’ve ignored high-ranking members of my court and stood much too close to others. Threnn told me you spilled a drink on Lady Phaedra.” He blasts out a breath, brows lowering.
Oh, gods, he’s angry. So there is some feeling in the cold-as-ice King of Death.
“Then I hear you’ve asked Lord Mastelle for his name and yet still mispronounced it. I told you names hold power. What do you think saying one incorrectly does?”
That takes the wind out of my sails. I intended to cause a bit of offense and ruffle the king’s feathers enough that he would think it better to send me home than keep me here. I didn’t mean to cause any actual damage.
The ravens lift their beaks and clack and caw, ear-splitting. The middle-sized one hops along the back of a chair, head bobbing as the others quieten.
Drystan sniffs the air. “Where are you hurt? I thought you just had some blood on a cloth, but… this is fresh.”
I swallow and carefully lift my chin. “It’s my new necklace. Do you like it?” Lashes fluttering, I smile up at him as though full of joy. With any luck, his haughtiness will make him believe my human inferiority extends to my intelligence. “Such a kind gift.”
His golden eyes flare. “A gift?” It’s less a question, more a growl.
If I wasn’t trying to piss him off, it would be frightening. But as it is, triumph kindles in me.
“You accepted a gift?”
“Oh no. I wasn’t meant to, was I?” I let my mouth fall open to a perfect O. “It just seemed like such a lovely gesture, I didn’t even think to say no.”
“And that gift has cut you.” He doesn’t ask permission, he just reaches around to the back of my neck and unclasps the necklace, managing to avoid causing any more damage.
I try to hold back my sigh of relief at no longer feeling like I have a razor blade to my throat. I fail.
Shaking his head, he rubs his thumb over my collarbone as though his touch can soothe the cuts there. My skin hums, and suddenly I’m aware of the weight of the sapphire necklace he clasped in place earlier, the whisper of my gown over my body.
But most of all, I’m aware of the smoothness of the pad of his thumb, the warmth of his fingers curled over my shoulder and the circles he’s pressing into my flesh as he smears away my blood.
“Who gave you the necklace?”
Telling him might cause lasting damage. Min told me Phaedra was favored to become his consort before I came along, and while she’s a nasty specimen, it doesn’t affect me if she becomes queen of this gods-forsaken place. “I swore to secrecy.”
“So you made a promise too?” Eyes shut, he exhales.
“Death and darkness, you are…” He exhales like he’s kept the breath in for too long and it’s been weighing him down.
The tension in him fades, but his brow gets lower and his eyelids dip like they’re heavy as he looks from my throat to my eyes.
“More is at stake than you understand.” He says it like I’m a child.
My kindling triumph grows hot, turning into something else—something that sears. “Oh, so it’s my fault for not understanding? I see. Silly me!” I lift my chin, glaring. “Here I was thinking it was because you explain nothing. Min had to tell me that manners were armor.”
“I told you to mind your manners.”
“You did. But you didn’t bother to give me even a hint as to why or what the repercussions might be. Like the power of names—you never bothered to tell me more. How was I supposed to know mispronouncing one could cause harm? If you don’t explain, how am I meant to understand?”
His frown clenches tighter, and for a long moment there’s quiet.
“Look,” I say, voice lowering, “this clearly isn’t working for either of us.
You’ve taken me as your bride. You had every intention of marrying me when you took me away.
I just happen to be unsuitable…” I think back to Phaedra’s words, proven true by the necklace’s cuts.
“Unworthy. But the bargain is fulfilled. You can take me home without any backlash.”
He blinks, something dawning in his eyes. “You did this so I’d send you away.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “My sweet little human bride isn’t as sweet as she seems.”
“I’m clearly bad at following rules. This was only one night. I’m sure I’ll cause all sorts of chaos if you keep me here.”
His eyes narrow as if weighing up the threat hanging from my words. “I could just keep you locked in your room.”
“Then I’ll try to escape again.”
He holds my gaze for a long while before his shoulders sink. “You will, won’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine. You want to go home? By the terms of the bargain that was made, I can’t just let you go.” He holds up a hand as I open my mouth to argue. “But you can earn it. We can make our own bargain.”
As a fae, he can’t lie, so there must be something about the agreement between my father and The Morrigan that stops him from simply taking me home. But earning it? I could work for that. It’s better than nothing, which his tone suggests is the only other option. “And what will be our terms?”
“I’ll give you a chance to leave the Underworld and return to your family.
You’ll have half a month to earn it. Meanwhile, you will play the part of a good fiancée.
You want an explanation? Very well.” He looms over me.
“You undermined me tonight. You sowed discord in my court. You may be nothing, but your actions have ripples. And those ripples affect my power and my ability to rule.” His nose wrinkles as though he hates confessing this.
“If I cannot rule, this stronghold will no longer stand. And when those walls crumble, what do you think will protect my people from the creatures outside? From the dead and the chaos?”
His glare is a cold spear running me through.
I thought I was just irritating him. It was practically a game. My throat grows tight and achy. “I never meant—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant. It matters what you do.
Repair the damage you’ve caused. We’ll have no more of tonight’s nonsense.
Even if you intend to earn your chance to leave this place, you will pretend that you are very happy as my fiancée, that you’re ecstatic about the prospect of becoming my queen, that you will rule them with the strength and dedication they deserve and that above all, you will keep them safe. Do we have a deal?”
Although it still feels like something is clawing its way up my throat, I swallow and try to marshal my thoughts. “So, half a month? A calendar month or—?”
“A lunar month.”
That could mean something different in the Underworld. I open my mouth to clarify.
“Twenty-eight days,” he says, clipped. “Halved to fourteen.”
Not long. But it’s better than the alternative.
“Of course, if you don’t want—”
I hold out my hand.
He shakes it, once, hard. “Good. I’ve found someone to train you in the ways of Fatework as required of a king’s consort.
You’ll begin tomorrow. For now, though, you can get started on earning your chance to go home.
” The cruel edge of his smirk quenches any excitement I might feel at the prospect. “Your very, very slim chance.”
Before I can ask what he means, his arms close around me and my being fragments into feathers and darkness.
When I am whole and can move, I’m clinging to him, woozy. I hate how solid he is. Add that to my growing list of things I hate about him.
Top of the list: the fact he doesn’t give a shit. Closely followed by the way he’s so smug about it. Family is the first lie we’re taught to believe. Like I’m a fool for caring, while he’s the epitome of enlightenment.
Pretty sure enlightened beings don’t threaten to cut people’s tongues out.
A brand-new entry on that list: the blooming realization of quite how solid his chest is under my hands, broad too, and that it makes a tiny knot of want at the center of my being tighten. Purely physical and utterly mortifying.
I shove away—or try. Once again, his arm is an iron band around my waist. “Get off me.”
His smirk is insufferable. He knows. My body betrayed me. Bastard. “You may not want me to let go when you see what’s behind you.”
I blink past the curtain of his hair, which moves lazily in a light breeze.
Mountains surround us, that same obsidian black as those behind the fortress, and when I look down, I see we’re on a small outcrop of rock. If I take a step back, I’ll trip over a root from the stunted tree clinging to the mountainside and I’ll fall.
I peer down and my stomach lurches. The depths disappear into mist. His ravens circle below us.
I make a small sound of acknowledgment, and now he’s satisfied I’m not about to plummet over the edge, he releases me and backs off half a foot. I never knew nods could be smug, but the one he gives me is. He turns from the mountain we’re perched on the side of, indicating a path forward.
“Path” is a generous term for it.